Into the Dark
by Fellowshipper
Summary: She loves Chris, but it isn't enough. It will never be enough. Love is not enough to save anyone; Chris of all people should know that. Chris/Bianca, Wyatt/Bianca. One-Shot.


**Warnings: **Some scattered profanity, violence, non-explicit sex, and possibly shades of dub-con if you squint. If any of that bothers you, don't read.

He's not Chris. So many times she's had to explain as much to Chris himself, reassure him that no matter how much guilt and doubt and self-hatred he continues to take on, he is not his brother. They don't even particularly look alike, really. Wyatt is taller, much more muscular than Chris's lanky form. He eats better, for starters; Chris is all nervous energy and he has a tendency to forget to eat or take care of himself at all until Bianca reminds him, forces him to slow down and tend to his own needs for once instead of everyone else's. They both have light eyes, but Wyatt's are sharp and cold as steel, where Chris's are bright and curious, warm in a way that Wyatt's have never been. They have the trademark Halliwell bone structure of sculpted cheekbones; Wyatt's give him a classical kind of beauty, but Chris's age him, make him appear even more gaunt than he already is.

Their personalities are similarly at odds. Wyatt moves with deliberate slowness, confident in his every gesture and unwilling to let anyone or anything hurry him, while Chris can't sit still for more than a few minutes at a time. Even when Bianca forces him to get some sleep, he tosses restlessly and mumbles semi-conscious plans into the pillows or her shoulder, whichever happens to be closer. As the entire world has learned, Wyatt craves power. He relishes the magic in his blood and constantly seeks ways to enhance it. Chris, meanwhile, has found a good balance between embracing his powers and retaining his humanity. Though he can't begin to compete with Wyatt in terms of sheer power, Bianca knows that Chris is still incredibly powerful. He rarely shows it, but he is the strongest telekinetic she has ever known, his own natural abilities honed by the ghost of his dead aunt Prudence, the strongest of the Charmed Ones and Chris's personal magical trainer.

All of this, naturally, is in addition to their primary differences, their fundamentally opposed views that have pitted them against each other for years. Wyatt was supposed to be the ultimate source of good in the world, so when Good failed him he left the world in ashes beneath his feet. Chris, the one who hadn't been prophesied and who had seen his faith in Good shattered at a very young age as he held his dying mother in his arms, has more reason than anyone to seek revenge against the forces that betrayed his trust. Instead, for all his sarcasm and repressed anger, he is still an optimist at heart, and he still believes his brother can be saved. Wyatt is by far the more powerful one between them, but he lacks Chris's determination. Wyatt is quick to change plans when things start going wrong, lashing out at those around him who have disappointed him in some way; Chris improvises, thrives under pressure and meets challenges head-on, often with great success.

Chris is not Wyatt. Bianca has lost count of how many times she's had to remind Chris of this when the weight of the world presses too heavily on his shoulders and threatens to break him. In his capacity as leader of the Resistance, he is strong, unshakeable, but alone with her he worries incessantly, going over that day's activities in his head until he's analyzed every single aspect several times over. No matter how successful the mission is, he always finds the flaws, finds ways they could be faster, stronger. They could save more lives. They could try harder. They could push through the pain and exhaustion and rescue one more innocent or one more fallen ally. He could save an entire city and still consider himself a failure for not saving one person. Bianca doesn't understand that. Life is not as cheap for her as it is for most of her coven – Chris taught her that – but she recognizes a victory when she sees it. Chris considers anything less than total success a waste. Maybe it's different when one is raised by the Charmed Ones, she supposes. Maybe that's why Chris is haunted by the face of every single innocent who dies because he is somehow unable to save them, every comrade who doesn't return from a mission he gives them. Bianca tells him, only half-jokingly, that he could walk a little taller if he'd put down that cross he carries everywhere on his back. Wyatt is either unable or unwilling to feel the pain he inflicts on others, to acknowledge the damage he causes and the lives he destroys, so Chris takes the pain for him. If Wyatt won't stop himself, then Chris will take on his sins and do penance for them both. It's twenty different kinds of fucked up, Bianca thinks, but nothing she says makes any difference in Chris's resolve. He is his mother's child, after all, and he won't be satisfied until he's martyred just like she was.

Wyatt is not Chris. She knows this just as confidently as she knows that the world is round, and yet the more time she spends with him, the more those lines begin to blur. On the surface, at least, the two are nothing alike. When she digs deeper, though, she finds pieces of one inside the other, little tells that betray their common heritage and just how close they once were. They are still biological brothers no matter what, but they were also once much closer than that, best friends and equal halves of the same being. She sees it in the way cold, merciless fury in Chris's eyes when they lose another friend, that deep-seated need for revenge that he buries somewhere deep inside but which is all the more terrifying for its rarity. She sees it also in the surprisingly gentle way Wyatt brushes his fingers over her cheek sometimes, and though she always prepares herself for the stinging blow of a hard slap or the painful sensation of his hand fisting in her hair and pulling her head back at an unnatural angle, now and then he surprises her and just gives her a smile that makes her feel the good, kind person Chris so fondly remembers.

She is not fortunate enough to have a sibling with whom she can split her personality. The disparate parts of her that don't make sense together nonetheless must coincide, the deadly mercenary and the freedom fighter, the part that wants to serve the greater good and the part that couldn't care less. She thought she knew who she was, once, a long time ago, but then she met Chris. Sweet, almost stupidly brave Chris. She was a valuable member of Wyatt's inner circle, assigned the morally gray tasks that demons had neither the patience to fulfill nor the sensitivity to understand. She wonders sometimes if he regrets sending her out to capture and return his wayward brother. Within days of bringing him back, disgusted with Wyatt's head games and his refusal to stop the demons from torturing his only living relative, Bianca helped Chris escape. She left Wyatt's sanctum and returned to the Resistance with Chris, suddenly and acutely aware of what her new purpose in life really was.

But she still comes back.

She hates herself for it, hates that part of her that just can't let go, that is weak and unable to fight the poison in every touch and every word Wyatt gives her. Something inside of her dies every time, yet this is the only time she ever truly feels alive. She loves Chris. She _does_. She would lay down her life for him without hesitation. One of these days, she knows she will. And though she has given him all that she is and all that she has, there is still something dark and twisted inside of her that he can never reach. It's the same darkness that Chris can see inside of Wyatt but which he can never quite touch, never fully understand, and so he will never be able to fight it. He will never win this battle on his own.

Bianca hates herself for it, but Wyatt understands. He says nothing when she shimmers into his private quarters, just smirks at her as though he knew she would break down, and from there it's frenzy and passion without love, teeth and nails and gasping breaths and screams that are only marginally born of pleasure. She does not "make love" with Wyatt. It can hardly even be called sex. She fucks him, and he owns her in return, breaks her down every time and leaves her angry and repulsed at herself, at him, at the entire world. But she always comes back again. They both know this. No matter how many venomous words they hiss at each other, how honestly she tells him through tears and gritted teeth that she despises everything about him, how much she fears that this time his hand will linger a bit too long around her throat or he'll lash out for real when she plunges her hand through his chest and shivers as his powers overtake her, she'll always come back.

She loves Chris, but it isn't enough. It will never be enough. Love is not enough to save anyone; Chris of all people should know that. She doesn't understand exactly what it is that brings her to Wyatt again and again. Their encounters are more like battles than anything else, the two of them sparring against each other and maintaining a very delicate, temporary truce. Of sorts. Everything is real, though, from the blood to the broken bones to the energy burns. Bianca knows exactly how it feels to be impaled on the end of Excalibur; she also knows how it feels to slide her athame across the smooth skin of Wyatt's throat. She knows how it feels to come so close to dying and then be pulled back from the brink as he heals her; he likes to do that just as she climaxes, a combination which never fails to make her scream and scratch her nails deeply into his skin as she writhes and shudders and truly _lives_ for just a few seconds. She knows what it's like to feel rough brick and rock scraping against her back as Wyatt pushes her against the wall and attacks. She knows the simultaneously horrifying and seductive glimmer in his eyes as he licks at the blood of a fresh wound he's caused, lips and teeth stained bright red.

She hates him with every ounce of her being, but hate is not enough to save her.

Chris isn't like that. At all. Bianca thinks it might be because of how messed up everything else in his life is, or maybe this is how he would be even if the world hadn't already gone to hell; whatever it is, Chris is unfailingly, endearingly, eternally frustratingly tender. He was a virgin when she met him, an idealistic teenager with unreasonable expectations about love and intimacy; she took a kind of perverse satisfaction in taking his virginity unceremoniously and without the candles and flowers and whatever other bullshit he thought should accompany the act. She still laughs when she recalls the shocked look on his face the first time she told him she wanted him to fuck her hard and fast; he'd looked so innocent and scandalized that she'd almost felt guilty for shattering any lingering misconceptions he had about how these things were "supposed" to be. Even now, years later, he is annoyingly gentle. He takes his time, exploiting every last sweet spot he's meticulously mapped out on her body over time, drives her absolutely wild with pent-up lust and so much damn love for him she feels like her heart might be crushed. Sometimes it's too much, and it's all she can do to wait for him to fall asleep before she turns over to cry herself to sleep. She doesn't deserve him. He doesn't belong in this screwed up world, like a wild flower growing through a crack in the sidewalk. He's too good for this place, too good for her; there must be someone else like him left in the world, so he should find her and be with _her. _Just like his mother before him, he thinks he can save everyone, thinks that he can drag them from the depths through love and will alone. Bianca knows better. He sees her as the one point of light left in his life, but she knows. She sees this for what it is, the desperate act of a desperate boy as he clings to something, anything that reminds him of a world that no longer exists. He thinks he is saving her and bringing her with him into the light; she knows that she is only dragging him down with her, deeper into the dark until eventually he'll be as lost in his own way as Wyatt.

If Chris is too sweet and tender with her, Wyatt exists solely on the opposite end of the spectrum. If anything, he is frighteningly intense, every movement precisely calculated for maximum effect. Chris looks at her with such loving adoration that she feels ashamed for not being as worthy of being saved as he thinks. Wyatt looks at her as a lion might regard a wounded zebra. Sometimes he'll even circle her as such, eyes lingering hungrily over her body before he lunges, pinning her to the floor and sinking his teeth into her throat. One of these days, she half-expects him to rip it completely open. Other times he looks at her like an intriguing science experiment, studying her with clinical detachment and treating her like just another instrument for his own benefit. He orders her to her knees, and if she resists – and she always does, as they both know – he twists his hand in her hair and bends her backwards until she has no choice but to relent. His touch is painful, burning like fire, his words slithering over her like oil, and though she would honestly like nothing more than to shove her blade straight through his heart, she lets him claim her every way he pleases. She lets herself be used, all the while hating herself for being thankful that anyone wants to use her at all, hates herself for relishing cold blue eyes and a burning touch instead of loving green eyes and feather-light fingertips trailing over her skin.

Wyatt is wholly unfazed by Bianca's duplicity. In fact, he seems to get off on it. He always heals her before she leaves, but he also always makes sure to leave at least one calling card etched into her skin: an especially vivid bruise, suspicious scratches along her hips, a bloody and swollen lip, all meant to force her to lie to Chris when she returns to him. She got the marks while on patrol; she got jumped by demons or witch-hunters; she had to save an innocent. The lies come as easily for her as they do for Chris, and she knows this because he says he understands and he asks if she's okay, but the light in his eyes fades a little with every excuse. They both know she's lying, and they're both too afraid to point that out.

And then, like clockwork, Bianca finds herself in Wyatt's bed again, and each time is more punishing than the last. He hates her for her relationship with Chris; she knows this, as he never misses an opportunity to remind her how very disappointed he is. All the same, it drives him crazy, makes him less guarded, more frantic, less careful, more dangerous. She struggles to catch her breath from the pace and he shoves her face into the pillows, closes his fingers around her neck and chokes the air from her until she has to shimmer away just to breathe. Then the process stars all over again.

Their best sex is when she's just left Chris. She tries not to think too much about what this says about Wyatt's disturbing relationship with his younger brother.

Fighting to regain her breath and blinking sweat from her eyes, she trembles violently with aftershocks as Wyatt coaxes one orgasm after another from her already exhausted body, each wound healed providing another erotic jolt that makes her back arch and her toes curl into the sheets beneath her.

"Such a good little whore," he whispers against her skin with mock affection, and when she trusts herself enough to speak, she shoots him a glare that could melt ice.

"Go to hell."

He laughs, a completely humorless noise that sends shivers down Bianca's spine, tremors that are in no way related to the energy surging through her veins. "No need to get testy, Bianca. You're getting something from me you can't get from him. Whether it's money or anything else, what difference does it make?"

She feels like crying out in desperation as Wyatt heals the knife wound on her inner thigh, sending her crashing into another fit of gasps and moans as her entire body throbs. His hand slides along her thigh, slick with sweat and blood and come, and she squeezes her eyes shut when he easily pushes her over the edge again. She tries to twist away from him, to give herself time to recover from one overwhelming rush before the next hits, but he is telekinetically holding her in place, fixed to the bed through his mind even as he reaches a hand out to grasp her chin and jerk her face toward him.

"You belong to me, witch. Do you understand?"

Her eyes narrow and she wants to fire off an angry reply, but her words are cut off when Wyatt shoves two fingers deep into her mouth, hard and deep enough to make her whimper as she struggles not to gag. She tastes herself on his skin, tinged with the copper taste of blood that she knows so well, and before she even realizes she's doing it she's sucking on his fingers, mewling quietly as she licks them clean. He watches with half-lidded eyes, transfixed by the performance.

"You belong to me," he repeats, his fingers leaving long trails of saliva behind as he pulls them out of Bianca's mouth. His voice is softer this time, but his words are somehow even more sharply edged, deadlier. "I _own _you. Body and soul."

Sickened and fighting down the bile rising in her throat, Bianca's eyes snap open and she regards him flatly, coolly, her own voice as calm and confident as though she meant only to describe the weather or some other fact. "He _will _stop you, Wyatt. One way or another."

Neither acknowledges the double meaning in her words, but they don't have to. Wyatt grins, all boyish charm for a split second as a previous life shines through, almost like he's proud of his little brother's determination. The moment is gone as quickly as it appears, replaced by a sneer when Wyatt leans down, his breath hot against Bianca's ear when he speaks.

"I'm counting on it."

The heaviness that had settled into Bianca's limbs abruptly vanishes, evidence that Wyatt is no longer holding her with his powers. She glares at him one last time before shimmering out, another death on her mind and another lie already forming on her tongue.


End file.
